domingo, marzo 11, 2007

Canada's foreign affairs minister says he wants to crack down on Chinese spies who are stealing industrial and high-technology secrets at a tremendous cost to the economy. "It's something that we want to signal we are prepared to address and continue to raise with the Chinese at the appropriate time," Peter MacKay told CTV. MacKay raised concerns of the release earlier this month in China of the RedBerry, an imitation of Canada's BlackBerry handheld device, made by Research in Motion based in Waterloo, Ont.

After all, there is no point in hurting Chinese feelings or making the Chinese authorities dig in their heels. Mann is particularly scathing about what he describes as the "Lexicon of Dismissal." Criticism of China is dismissed as "bashing," "provocative" or "anti-China" (a favorite of the Chinese themselves), and any such censure always runs the risk of turning China into an enemy.

In his anger over this muzzling trend, Mann comes close to seeing a conspiracy by well-meaning but self-serving American elites -- with, of course, the happy acquiescence of the Chinese communists -- to keep the United States investing in and trading with China.